Evolution Quotes - Page 6

• Evolution, of course, is not something that simply applies to life here on earth; it applies to the whole universe.

  John Polkinghorne

  Earth, Courses, Whole

  51 Copy quote

• Evolution is a blind giant who rolls a snowball down a hill. The ball is made of flakes-circumstances. They contribute to the mass without knowing it. They adhere without intention, and without foreseeing what is to result. When they see the result they marvel at the monster ball and wonder how the contriving of it came to be originally thought out and planned. Whereas there was no such planning, there was only a law: the ball once started, all the circumstances that happened to lie in its path would help to build it, in spite of themselves.

  Mark Twain

  Lying, Law, Knowing

  17 Copy quote

• The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces - in nature, in society, in man himself.

  Leon Trotsky

  Nature, Taken, Men

  Leon Trotsky (1980). “The History of the Russian Revolution”, Anchor Foundation

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• I speak about universal evolution and teleological evolution, because I think the process of evolution reflects the wisdom of nature. I see the need for wisdom to become operative. We need to try to put all of these things together in what I call an evolutionary philosophy of our time.

  Jonas Salk

  Philosophy, Thinking, Progress

  "Congressional Gold Medal". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. May 16, 1991.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I do not plan any painting, but begin with layers of textures and colors. As I layer the colors, something is suggested to me from within, and that is how it evolves.

  Katherine Dunn

  Color, Texture, Layers

  7 Copy quote

• New gene pools are generated in every generation, and evolution takes place because the successful individuals produced by these gene pools give rise to the next generation.

  Ernst Mayr

  Successful, Glowing, Giving

  Ernst Mayr (1988). “Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist”, p.457, Harvard University Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The evolution of knowledge is toward simplicity, not complexity.

  L. Ron Hubbard

  Simplicity, Complexity

  L. Ron Hubbard (2007). “Handbook for Preclears”, p.207, Bridge Publications, Inc.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• We know evolution happened because innumerable bits of data from myriad fields of science conjoin to paint a rich portrait of life's pilgrimage.

  Michael Shermer

  Data, Portraits, Fields

  Michael Shermer (2016). “Skeptic: Viewing the World with a Rational Eye”, p.232, Henry Holt and Company

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The paradox in the evolution of French painting from Courbet to Cezanne is how it was brought to the verge of abstraction in and by its very effort to transcribe visual appearance with ever greater fidelity.

  Clement Greenberg

  Effort, Cezanne, Painting

  "Art and Culture: Critical Essays". Book by Clement Greenberg, "On the Role of Nature in Modernist Painting" (1949), p. 171, 1961.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Biology is the science. Evolution is the concept that makes biology unique.

  Jared Diamond

  Unique, Biology, Concepts

  22 Copy quote

• Paleontologists [fossil experts] have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we almost never see the very process we profess to study.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Views, Data, Fancy

  7 Copy quote

• It is emphatically the case that life could not arise spontaneously in a primeval soup from its kind.

  A. E. Wilder-Smith

  Soup, Kind, Arise

  14 Copy quote

• It is failure that guides evolution; perfection provides no incentive for improvement, and nothing is perfect.

  Colson Whitehead

  Failure, Perfect, Incentives

  Colson Whitehead (2012). “The Intuitionist: A Novel”, p.38, Anchor

  36 Copy quote

  Show source

• Theories of evolution must provide for the creative acts which brought such theories into existence.

  Michael Polanyi

  Theory Of Evolution, Creative, Existence

  "Transcendence And Self-Transcendence". Book by Michael Polanyi, 1970.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the evolution of mankind there has always been a certain degree of social coherence.

  Herbert Read

  Coherence, Degrees, Social

  Herbert Read (1963). “Selected Writings: Poetry and Criticism”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• New knowledge has led to the recognition in the theory of evolution of more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.

  Pope John Paul II

  Theory Of Evolution, Discovery, Religion

  "Popeular Science" by Phil Plait, www.slate.com. October 29, 2014.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Science...has become identified with a philosophy known as materialism or scientific naturalism. This philosophy insists that nature is all there is, or at least the only thing about which we can have any knowledge. It follows that nature had to do its own creating, and that the means of creation must have included any role for God.

  Phillip E. Johnson

  Philosophy, Mean, Creating

  17 Copy quote

• Mathematics without natural history is sterile, but natural history without mathematics is muddled.

  John Maynard Smith

  Mathematics, Natural, Natural History

  John Maynard Smith (1988). “Games, sex and evolution”, Prentice Hall

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Perhaps generations of students of human evolution, including myself, have been flailing about in the dark; that our data base is too sparse, too slippery, for it to be able to mold our theories. Rather the theories are more statements about us and ideology than about the past. Paleontology reveals more about how humans view themselves than it does about how humans came about, but that is heresy.

  David Pilbeam

  Dark, Past, Data

  7 Copy quote

• The cumulative nature of the evolutionary process, the fact that memory is preserved, means that life grows not just through a random proliferation of new forms, but there's a kind of cumulative quality.

  Rupert Sheldrake

  Memories, Mean, Quality

  7 Copy quote

• May it not suffice for me to say ... that of course like every other man of intelligence and education I do believe in organic evolution. It surprises me that at this late date such questions should be raised.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Believe, Men, Presidential

  Woodrow Wilson, Arthur Stanley Link (1993). “The Papers of Woodrow Wilson”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• We're not going to make Evolution or any of our other products depend on Mono anytime in the near future.

  Nat Friedman

  Mono, Depends, Products

  Interview with Eugenia Loli, mobile.osnews.com. June 3, 2003.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The last decade of Internet evolution has been marked by innovation. That innovation has been a consequence of the open and neutral access that the Internet has afforded up until now.

  Vinton Cerf

  Innovation, Lasts, Internet

  7 Copy quote

• The proposition that humans have mental characteristics wholly absent in non-humans is inconsistent with the theory of evolution.

  Gary L. Francione

  Theory Of Evolution, Mental Illness, Characteristics

  9 Copy quote

• This evolution may compromise Java's claim of being simpler than C++, but my guess is that the effort will make Java a better language than it is today.

  Bjarne Stroustrup

  Effort, Java, May

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source